There is a public talk about a lunar tourist Soyuz-flight offered at $100,000,000 per tourist. Per flight there will be one tourist only. The Soyuz will go to the ISS first - orbital flight - then an Earth departure stage will be launched, the Soyuz will dock to it and then the lunar trip will start.

The article "X Prize veterans work on next space steps" (
msnbc.msn.com/id/9615023/ ) provides me an additional number now by quoting David Gump to have been mentioning the launch costs of the Soyuz to be estimated at $65,000,000

The price for an touristic orbital Soyuz flight is at 20,000,000.

So the orbital flight is at less than third of the total Soyuz-launch-sosts - and the price of a lunar touristic flight by a Soyuz is only $35,000,000 higher than the estimated costs of one Soyuz-launch.

This mix requires systematification now:

The orbital tourist pays less than a third of one Soyuz-launch. The two cosmonauts are going to do real work at the ISS or in orbit in general and so aren't pilots only.

Regarding the lunar trip however the two cosmonauts can do no other "work" than to look at the Moon - like the tourist. The Soyuz might be equipped by some scientific instruments - but these will be operating automatically and not by payed by the toruist.

For this reason the tourist can be assumed to have to pay the complete costs for the lunar flight.

The complete price of $100,000,000 of the lunar trip could be assumed to inlcude the complete costs of the Earth Departure Stage including launch into orbit, the life-suppport requirements for three persons and the orbital price of $20,000,000.

In that case the structure of the 100,000,000 will be 25% orbital price, a significant percentage Earth Departure Stage itself + the costs to launch the Earth Departure Stage + propellant required to escape for the moon, orbital insertion around the Moon and escape back to Earth.

I will think about an approach to find out more. Which informations about costs can you add?

In between I remeberes and found another article about the moon-trip and recognized that the concept mentioned in the initial post was from Constellation services while Space Adventures ahs a different concept.

I am going to make use of both concepts and to try to make non-numerical issues numerically usable to be able to include them into arithmetical and mathematical operations.

In between I found time and opportunity to start using the data and informations for looking into the cost structure(s).

First recall that the prices the three first orbital tourists had to pay were $ 20 mio. One Soyuz launch is said to cost $ 65 mio each. So the Russians themselves had paid $ 45 mio of their own for their own purposes and uses which had to do with the normal work and science abourd the ISS.

The first concept reported by MSNBC and worked out by Constellation Services involves a visit to the ISS too before the journey around the moon begins. For this reason it the Russians would pay $ 45 mio like previously for achieving their own purposes and uses which don't have to do with the lunar trip.

The only tourist in the first concept pays $ 100 mio - $ 20 mio of which he would have paid for an orbital - and non-lunar - trip.

So the difference of $ 80 mio by which the lunar trip is more expensive must have to do with the Block DM, the Proton rocket, the propellant of the Block DM and the propellant of the Proton rocket.

The total costs of that ISS-lunar combination would be $ 145 mio really - the $ 100 mio the tourist has to pay plus the $ 45 mio the Russians pay themselves for their own purposes and uses.

According to Constellation Services the Proton rocket will be the biggest costs of that trip - so a large portion of the $ 80 mio will be the costs of the Proton.

The second concept by Space Adventures can be used now to find out more. They have two different versions one of which doesn't involve a visit to the ISS - that one I am going to use now.

In that second concept two tourists will be on the trip instead of one only. Both of them will have to pay $ 100 mio.

The difference to Constellation Service's concept is that there is no visit to the ISS and so no purpose or use for the Russians. This means that the two tourists together will have to pay the complete launch costs of the Soyuz. So these can be subtracted from the revenue of $ 200 mio and $ 135 mio are left - instead of $ 80 mio only. The difference will have to with the tests Space Adventures is speaking of. Currently ignoring what they say about that the following would be possible: 1. the Block DM used for tests is the identical one used for the later trip, 2. there are docking tests only and so the propellant of the Block DM isn't consumed during the tests, 3. only one Proton rocket is required to carry the BNlock DM including propellant into orbit.

Of course this has to be corrected and adjusted later but for the first time this is what I am considering. The $ 55 mio difference between the $ 80 mio of the first concept and the $ 135 mio of the second concept can tell more.

I randomly came across an additional information I will make use of in my next post.

Using this and the data about Proton from Wikipedia I get the result that the launch costs of Proton are more than $ 59 mio. or even more than $ 63 mio.

So this would be the share of the trip price the Proton has. So in the first concept between $ 21 mio. and zero would be left and between $ 76 mio. and $ 55 mio. in t5he second concept. The lower amount in the second case would be valid if the Proton would cost $ 80 mio..

Based on this I will go on to look for possible conclusions out of these data.

In another section Klaus.Schmidt posted a diagram about launch costs of russian rockets including the Proton. Thank You Very Much, Kluas, for the link to the artciel you sent me via PM. That diagram says that the Proton-launch costs are around $ 85 mio. The diagram doesn't say which Proton is meant but I suppose it may be the Proton M. From the information got from the article under www.marssociety.de the launch costs of the Proton M would be $ 63 mio. at least. Since diagrams aren't as precise as numbers it might be that the Proton M costs are $ 84 mio. and thus by athird higher than what I calculated - so it might be that the Proton involved in the touristic lunar trips has to be assumed to cost $ 80 mio or a little bit less really. The total price in the first concept doesn't allow for more than the $ 80 mio and the costs I calculated in the previous post were $ 59280000.

Since the first concept includes a purpose of the Russians the $ 100 mio. may include no profits for the Russians - but it surely will include a profit for Constellation services. Currently it seems that the profit can be included in th $ 20 mio. only which Space Adventures at least calculated for the orbital touristic trip - and Space Adventures have got a profit because they are funding three X-PRIZE teams by that profit (one of them being the russian Suborbital Corporation).

The second concept doesn't include no russian purpose and so it has to supposed that the second concept includes a profit for the russians as well as a profit for Space Adventures. These both profits will be included into the sum of the orbital $ 20 mio. and the $ 55 mio which remain after subtracting the Proton as well as the Soyuz from the revenues of $ 200 mio. I suppose the profit rate to be between 5% and 7% of the revenue but there are no bnumbers about it - it only menas that the costs will be less than going to be calculated in this thread. 5% of the revenue would mean $ 10 mio., 7% $ 14 mio. If both get that percentage it would mean $ 20 mio to $ 28 mio. - then $ 27 mio. to $ 35 mio. would be left for the tests.

But the informations about the second concept (Space Adventures) say that an unmanned lunar flight is planned also. Since both the Soyuz and the Proton are expendable this test-flight will cost more than $ 35 mio and also more than $ 55 mio. This has to be handled in this thread - beginning in the next post.

In the previous post I concluded that the $ 55 mio which remain after subtracting the costs of the lunar flight from the revenue wouldn't cover the unmanned test-flight round the Moon. The costs of that test-Flight can be assumed to be $ 145 mio here. This means thgat at least $ 90 mio aren't covered yet by one flight carrying two tourists. A second flight also wouldn't be sufficient. At least a third flight is required. Three flights would mean 3 * $ 55 mio = $ 165 mio. Subtracting the costs of the test-flight leaves $ 20 mio which might have to cover docking tests, rendezvous tests etc.

May be that more than one Proton is consumed for tests previous to the lunar test-flight. I still have to think about how to involve that.

Up to now I have used the concept of Constellation Services and the concept of Space adventures which deosn't use the ISS. But they said that they consider an alternative concept too which includes docking the ISS for up to 14 days. This would mean that the russian have a purpose from the flight which I suppose to be larger than any purpose of one week docking only (?). How to take into account the increase is also something I am still thinking about but it should mean that the lunar tourists shouldn't have to cover the complete $ 65 mio the Soyuz costs - it might have to be even less than $ 20 mio. Then the costs of the lunar tourists together would be even less than $ 100 mio - leaving mor than $ 100 mio for the test-flight and tests. So it might be that only 4 customers are required to cover the costs of the tests.

The result here is that at least 4 customers and thus two lunar flights seem to be required - Space Adventures have said that they have identified 1,00 persons around the world which are potential customers to fly around the Moon.

If Space Adventures and the Russians manage to get all the 1,000 potential customers identified then this would mean that the test-flight costing $ 145 mio can be depreciated by 500 flights. The depreciation would be at $ 290,000 per flight and $ 145,000 to be paid by the single customer. The problem here is that the depreciations are the only way to get back the costs of the test flight. That flight is an investment which can't be sold never - it is sunk costs which should be called better lost-in-space-costs here. The proeperty to be sunk or lost-in-space urges Space Adventures as well the Russians to wait until a certain number of contractors are got I think or it might be a reason to prefer the 14 day long visit to the ISS - or both of these. (By the way - it might be an incentive to develop a reusable lunar vehicle and for the russian intent to offer touristic flights by Kliper).

Another aspect I am turning the focus to now are the $ 55 mio which might be the costs for docking tests and the like. These tests are investments too and they seem to be sunk or lost-in-space also. At 500 flights this would be $ 110,000 per flight adn $ 55,000 the single customer has to pay. These contribute to the problem already mentioned above.

In total there seem to be $ 400,000 to be depreciated per flight if really 1,000 customers can be turned into contractors - meaninf that each customer would have to contribute $ 200,000 for the coverage of sunk or lost-in-space costs.

But after the tests the test-flights fall apart as well as docking tests etc. - but the price of $ 100 mio per passenger seems to be kept. I have to think about it but it seems to me as if it is profit partially at least! ...

In between I have done two tasks - I have treid to look into the structure of the costs of the Proton and I have calculated the break-even point. First the break-even-point including applied algebra and then the Proton.

Break-Even-Point

Regarding the profits I didn't look by any calculational or logical considerations for the share they might have of the $ 55 mio when the first four to six torusits have been flown around the Moon. But there is a break-even-point like calculated in the Accumulations-thread:

- each lunar flights has a price of $ 100 mio per ticket
- each lunar flight seems to cost $ 145 mio
- there is the investment of $ 145 mio lost-in-space costs

number of tickets * $ 100 mio = number of flights * $ 145 mio + $ 145 mio - profit is $ 0
two tickets make up one flight

number of flights = $ 145 mio/ $ 55 mio = 2.64 flights which have to be rounded to three flights meaning six toruists.

This number has been known already.

Proton

I used data from wikipedia and www.bernd-leitenberger.de to mtry to find out the hardware-costs of the Proton. Except the length of the Soyuz and the Proton nothing lead to valid reuslts in which the hadrware costs are below the $ 80 mio for the Proton launch.

I applied the length according to what I did in the CXV-thread and got $ 58.7 mio as hardware-costs. This number I am doubting because it is below the hardware-costs of the Soyuz. It leaves $ 21.3 for the costs of the ADMH and teh Dinitrogentetroxide the costs of I couldn't find nowhere.

But at least that number is a reason to assume that the propellant should be assumed to cost more than the LOX and cerosene for the Soyuz - per kilogram.

Do you know valid official numbers?

To no underestimate the propellant costs here I will assume the ADMH/N2O4-costs to be ranging between $ 500,000 and $ 15 mio

There is another interesting information regarding the structure of the Proton-costs. The Block DM uses LOX/cerosene as propellant. To overestimate the costs of the propellant I calculated the complete propellant to cost $ 0.65 per kilopgram as I did in the CXV-thread - then the propellant costs for leaving the orbit for the Moon are $ 9,912.5 only.

The structure of the Proton-costs togteher with the structure of the Soyuz-costs considered in the CXV-thread now tell me that the share of the hardware-costs of the lost-in-space costs are btwenn $ 129.5 mio and $ 143.5 mio - using the range of the ADMH/N2O4-costs from above.

So it the vehicle would be reusable the lost-in-space.costs could be dropped by $ 129.5 mio to $ 143.5 mio. The remiander are propellant costs that can't be avoided applying the Soyuz and the Proton.

A Soyuz (A) has a cylindircal volume of 53.47 m^3 while a Soyuz (TM) has a cylindrical volume of 63.92 m^3. The CXV with a cylindrical volume of 61,26 m^3 obviously is significantly larger than a Soyuz (A) and only a little bit - 2.66 m^3 - smaller than a Soyuz (TM). Additionally I am informed that in a Soyuz it's narrow for the astronauts if three persons are onboard and that it in emergency could carry four persons down to Earth. In comparison to that a CXV can carry between 4 and six persons - what's the upper boundary in the case of the Soyuz is the lower boundary in the case of the CXV (that lower boundary may have to do with being economical, required crew size of the ISS etc.). At wikipedia I found that a Soyuz-capsule has an interior volume of 350 cubic feet which are 9.45 m^3. Per person that would be 4.725 m^3 for two cosmonauts each, 3.15 m^3 for three cosmonauts each and 2.3625 m^3 for four cosmonauts each. It would be interesting to find according details about the CXV but because of the
informations available about the passenger capacity and the cylindircal volume of the CXV compared to the Soyuz the CXV can be as a possible substitute for a Soyuz.

Next the Soyuz originally is an orbital vehicle. If the Russians consider a touristic flight around the Moon to be possible by that orbital vehicle then from the financial side it can be replaced by a CXV - which menas to replace the expendability by reusability. The CXV has in common with the Soyuz that it will be an orbital vehicle. The trip around the Moon by the Soyuz as it is under design menas that the Syouz would be capable to carry the food and water etc. the pilot and the two tourists need - so the CXV with its larger interior voulme as it is indicated by the passenger capacity will be capable of that also.

In this post it can be assumed that the lunar flight of a CXV would be scheduled as the last the number of flights which determines its lifetime.

All this together is unsatisfying and I will improve it all in the following posts.

The result in this post is that using the CXV instaed of the Soyuz would reduce two kinds of costs involved in the Soyuz-based concepts:

- the hardware-costs of the CXV for a test-flight would be $ 20 mio only instead of $ 65 mio - reducing the lost-in-space costs by $ 45 mio.
- the hardware-costs of the CXV for a flight carrying a pilot and two tourists would be $ 20 mio only instead of $ 65 mio - reducing the trip costs by $ 45 mio.

I neglected the propellant costs here because they are significantly below $ 1 mio.

So the replacement by a CXV would drop the lost-in-space-costs to $ 100 mio and the trip-costs down to $ 100 mio also.

Since I said that it would be last of all possible flights a CXV can do two CXVs would be reuqired here which is an additional reason to improve this approach. But please note - I am using the fincial properties of the CXV here only. I will say more about that later during this thread.

At this point the price could be dropped by at least $ 22.5 mio down to $ 77.5 mio per passenger and the number of flights until break-even would be kept - then the remaining lost-in-space-costs would be covered and each additional flight could cause profits of up to $ 55 mio.

Next there is the very expensive Proton. One possibility to get rid of the Proton-costs might be to carry a Block-DM into orbit by one Falcon 9 and two Falcon I. One Falcon 9 has a payload capacity of 16.6 tons only which means that 1 ton propellant have to be carried separately and to be fueled into the Block DM in orbit.

Since the complete weight of the Block DM inclduing propellant is 17,550 kg the Falcon 9 would have to be a S5 with launch costs of $ 51 mio for the first 16,500 kg of total. The remaining 1050 kg of propellant would have to be delivered into orbit via two Falcon 1 with a payload-capacity of 570 kg and launch costs of $ 6.7 mio each.

Then the total launch costs to carry the Block DM into orbit would be $ 64.4 mio. The launch costs would have been reduced by $ 15.6 mio it seems - but it is required to have a look at the Block DM.

Before having that look at the Block DM I want to improve the results regarding the Proton I used in the previous psot. Under www.bernd-leitenberger.de ut is said that ADMH cost $ 24 per kg in 1980 while MNH cost $ 17 per kg in 1990. A bit aged obviously but sreaching the web via MetaGer - a german meta-serach-machine - I recognized that hydrazine has constant applications. To use those two prices wouldn't mean to apply too high prices. I wouldn't wonder if they are too low. The first three stages of the Proton in total contain 622,085 kg of propellant. If it were ADMH totally then this amount of ADMH would mean propellant costs of $ 14,930,040. To this the $ 9,912.5 for the cerosene of the Block DM have to be added. Then the propellant costs are 14,939,952.50 meaning hardware-costs of 65,060,047.50. But according to my informations the propellant is not ADMH totally but Dinitrogentetroxide is used also. Since there are four hydrogen-atoms involved in the ADMH-molecule as well as four oxygen-atoms are part of the Dinitrogentetroxide I suppose that the proepllant is two thirds ADMH and one third Dinitrogentetroxide. I do not know the price of it and so apply the price of the ADMH solely - getting toohigh hardware-costs this way. two thirds of the propellant costs got above are 9,959,968.33 which mean hardware-costs of $ 70,040,031.67.

So I have got complete hardware costs of the Proton of between $ 65,060,047.50 and $ 70,040,031.67. I could have applied the $ 17 for the other version of hydrazine also but first I am informed that ADMH is used and second it simply would increase the hardware costs I get. But it is required to look at the minimum costs of the Block DM-hardware I can imagine based on the data available because the launch costs for the Block DM even by using the Falcons would be only less than $ 16 mio below the Proton launch costs. Applying the relations of weight, length, volume and number of engines fo the Block DM to the complete rockets to the least hardware costs I get $ 3,035,255.77, $ 8,417,618.83, $ 5,654,351.89 and 4,337,336.50. These added to the total Falcon launch costs would result in betweeen $ 67.4 mio and $ 72.9 mio - meaning reductions compared to the Proton by between $ 12.6 mio and $ 7.1 mio. That isn't that much compared to the reductions got for the capsule. If the upper boundary is used then the numbers are only slightly worse.

But the Block DM doesn't fit into the Falcon 9 S5 and also is expendable. For all these reasons I prefer to calculate something different in the next post.

If there would be a booster in orbit with the capabilities of the Block DM but reusable then the costs of the hardware of the Block DM wouldn't be variable costs no longer but fixed costs. In that case it would be interesting to apply the $ 3 mio to $ 9 mio got in the previous post as hardware-costs of the Block DM. The reusability would mean that this harware wouldn't have to be launched any longer for each lunar trip. The weight of the hardware of the Block DM without the propellant is 2,300 kg only. I didn't check yet if this fits into a Falcon 5 but as far as I remember the Falcon 5 can launch that weight. So there would be just one Falcon 5-flight be required to get the empty Block DM-like reusable booster into the orbit. This would cost the investment into the booster plus the launch-costs of the Falcon 5 - $ 3 mio + $ 17 mio = $ 20 mio or $ 9 mio + $ 17 mio = $ 26 mio.

What'S left are the propellant costs which are variable costs. The main portion of these are the costs to carry the propellant into the orbit. This could be done by a Falcon 9 S5. that vehicle can carry the 15,250 kg proepllant the Block DM needs - and would cost $ 51 mio per launch. I will look later how this can be handled. Essential here is that the reusable replacement of the Block DM would mean an investment of betwwen $ 20 mio and $ 26 mio only and so would be removed from the variable costs.

The variable costs per lunar trip would be reudced by another $ 20 mio to $ 26 mio this way. The costs per lunar trip would be $ 74 mio to $ 80 mio yet while the lost-in-space-costs would be reduced down to those numbers also.

So then the price each passenger has to pay could be dropped down to between 64.5 mio and $ 67.5 mio.

Now let's look to the lost-in-space costs. In the initial concept(s) they were $ 145 mio, per flight $ 55 mio maximum were available to cover them and three flights and six passengers were required. In the previous post they were dropped down to $ 100 mio and if the price would be dropped as fas as possible because of that two flights and four passngers were required to cover the lost-in-space-costs - one flight and two passngers less than in the initial concept(s). But the price of $ 100 mio could have been kept instead - then the lost-in-space-costs would have been covered by the first flight in total. In this post now that's valid also - but even a dropped price could cover those cost by the first flight - the dropped price would be $ 154.5 mio to $ 160 mio.

The flights after the lost-in-space-costs are covered could be reduced then. If no profits would be intended then the price per passenger could be dropped dwon to between $ 37.25 mio and $ 40 mio.

These considerations are beginning to remind to Virgin Galactic's projections regarding their suborbital business.

Since the Block DM is considered to be replaced in this post it could be a satge or booster fitting into a Falcon 5 and having the capabilities of the Block DM.

The consideration of the Block DM under additional aspects I will do later since I in between consider another path of analysis to be more streamlined and better.

Like in the CXV-thread I thought of the weight- - and thus mass- - difference between the CXV and the Soyuz. If the vehicle with the CXV-like financial properties would weigh as much as the CXV then because of the Ziolkovski-formular this vehicle would need exponentially less propellant than the Soyuz. To calculate the weight of the required propellant for the CXV-like vehicle by linearily reducing vie multiplication by the quotient of the weight of the CXV and the weight of the Soyuz the propellant for the CXV-like vehicles is overestimated and so at the safe side. The relation of the two weights is 0.51 for the Soyuz (TM) and 0.62 for the Soyuz (A). If the propellant would be launched via a Falcon 9 S5 and 16,200 kg would be launched exhausting the Falcon 9 S5's capacity then that Falcon's launch costs of $ 51 mio could be covered by several flights. For one flight I get a propellant-weight of between 0.51 * 15,500 kg = 9,300 kg and 0.62 * 16,500 kg = 10,230 kg. The propellant launched then is enough for
between 16,200 kg/9,300 kg = 1.74 flights and 16,200 kg/10,230 kg = 1.58 flights. The costs of transportation of propellant would be per flight between $ 30 mio and $ 33 mio then. This is a reduction by $ 21 mio to $ 18 mio per flight. The costs of the lunar trip would be reduced to $ 53 mio to $ 62 mio then - which is valid for the lost-in-space-costs also.

So the price could be reduced to between $ 54 mio and $ 56 mio for the first flights then. These are the flights before all lost-in-space-costs are covered.

These new numbers have in interesting consequence now - the lower number would mean that the lost-in-space-costs are covered after just one trip where at lest two were required up to now. The higher number still would require two trips to be covered - but the talk is about only $ 7 mio then.

After all lost-in-space-costs are covered the price could be dropped down to $ 27 mio to $ 32 mio. Then there would be nearly no profits - the real prices would be higher I suppose.

One remark about the booster each time to be left in orbit - the Block DM considered to be replaced weighs less than a CXV. So it could be launched via WK2 and the CXV-booster also.

I still think about further reductions of the transportation costs of the propellant - the quotient of the propellant price and the transportation costs is very small yet.

I replaced the Soyuz by a CXV-like capsule because of the financial properties of the CXV. I calculated the total flight costs of the CXV for the lunar trip - but is that required? The flight costs of $ 20 mio are required to achieve the orbit only. The CXV can carry six persons into the orbit. If I assume that one of them is the pilot then there are five passengers which have to pay the $ 20 mio all together. This means that the single passenger has to pay $ 4 mio only to be carried into the orbit.

But only two of those five passengers will do the trip to the Moon.

So if I return now to the concept where a space station - may be Bigelow's Nautilus - is involved into the trip then it is possible that five persons are carried to the space station but only two are carried farther to the Moon. Then these two pay only $ 4 mio each from surface to orbit. In total this means that only $ 8 mio instead of $ 20 mio have to be inserted into the calculations here - $ 12 mio don't have to do with the lunar flight but with the orbital flight only.

Then the costs would be dropped by another $ 12 mio. They would be at $ 41 mio to $ 50 mio per flight then - the lost-in-space costs would be equal.

The price per passenger would be at $ 48 mio to $ 50 mio then. Obviously the difference of $ 55 mio between the revenue of $ 96 mio to $ 100 mio got from the two passengers is larger now than the lost-in-space costs of $ 41 mio to $ 50 mio. This means not only that they include a small profit - only one flight is required now to cover all the lost-in-space costs and two lunar customers are required only to cover that investment. Beginning at the second flight the price per passenger could be dropped to $ 21 mio to $ 26 mio - the current price level for orbital tourist flights by the Soyuz.

At this point now I turn back to the Block DM which I delayed in the previous post. This is menat also to solve a problem left in my eyes regarding the CXV.

First some ideas of how to get rid of the transportation costs to deliver the propellant for the replacement of the Block DM into the orbit. The amount to be delivered could be spread over several flights. This would allow to share the capacity of the Soyuz 9 S5 with other SpaceX-customers. If this is done then it is thinkable that the other customer covers a larger share of the total launch price than his share of the capacity would mean arithmetically. The cause would be the market, the importancy of his payload or other reasons like these. If this other customer wouldn't do so he would have to pay the full launch price since he would be the only customer for that launch and his payload may be smaller than the capacity of the Falcon 9 S5. How much the costs for the delivery of the propellant for the lunar flight could be dropped this way depends on the market for the other payload, the market for the service or purpose etc the other payload is needed for or the importancy of the other payload
etc. The number of launches the propellant for the lunar trip could be spread over depends on the time until the date the lunar trip is scheduled for and the number of Falcon 9 S5-launches during that time. I will not calculate such ideas here since there are no examples available in reality yet. The only example would be the launch of the FalconSat2 by the Falcon 1 - the Falcon 1 can launch up to 570 kg while the FalconSat 2 weighs a fraction of that only. But the US Air Force and DARPA pay the full launch price of $ 6.7 mio. So they might be willing to pay $ 5 mio only and to agree that someone else adds another payload and pays the remainder of $ 1.7 mio. Might be that this is propellant for the lunar trip. Of course - the military won't do that but it illustrates what I am talking about. It also could be done by using a QuickReach and Virgin Galactic's WK2 and seems to tend to have reduced costs then. It could be done each time when payloads are carried to the Nautilus or to the ISS provided the Block
DM-replacement is parked at one of those stations as well as the propellant depot.

I know that the Falcon 1 has been lost at the launch last night (Germany) but I suppose a success at the next or the third launch and use the financial and economical properties only of the Falcons here.

Another question is how the Block DM will be used. The two articles don't say nothing about how the return to Earth will be done - if there is an orbit insertion first or if there will be propellant left for this in the Block DM. Nor they say nothing if the Block DM will be used at the flight around the Moon also or if it will be abandoned after the translunar insertion.

So I only can use the information I found under www.bernd-leitenberger.de. There it is said that the Block DM can be restarted several times, up to five ignition sequences are possible. Since I find this information to be insufficient by far I am going to use additional informations from quite another source applying them the way I already did earlier. I am going to look to the Apollo 8 flight plan and similar informations. What I found out at the first glance up to now is that Apollo 8 didn't have an orbital insertion around Earth at its return from the Moon - I will look to other missions also. I will have looks to Wikipedia also for informations about Saturn V and the Apollo capsule in general regarding the Service Module and the Command Module.

At the end of this post there is a table about the steps the costs and price are reduced by in the previous posts. They are nearly a seventh of the costs and price in the original concept.

The informations I said I am looking for in between resulted in the information that the Command Module CM of the Apollo-crafts had a weight of 5,809 kg which is 2,209 more than the weight of the CXV. The Service Module SM had a weight of 24,523 according to Wikipedia (german) but nothing is said about details. The number given is by 7,023 higher than the weight of the Block DM including propellant.
Wikipedia also says that the engine(s) of the SM could be ignited up to 50 times and used 50% hydrazine and 50% ADMH plus Dinitrogentetroxide. The propellant-tanks had a capacity of 25,300 kg in total.

Apollo 8 as well as all following Apollos had an orbit-insertion (except Apollo 13 if I remeber correct) which isn't planned for the lunar Soyuz-trip and so will not be considered here. The orbital insertions mean that additional propellant was required to return to Earth which also isn't required for the lunar Soyuz-flight. And beginning with Apollo 11 the weight of the Lunar Module LM will have caused another add-on of the required amount of propellant. So it might be that all of the Apollo-propellant-capacities not required here or a portion of it could be used to enter an orbit around Earth at return.

I didn't find no informations that the Soyuz will enter an orbit but the reusable replacement of the Block DM would require to enter an orbit because I said that it will be reused and launched from the surface only once - and next entering an orbit around Earth would remove the requiremnet to assume that this trip is the last of the CXV or - more correctly - the financially CXV-like vehicle. It would mean that the vehicle is decelerated to the velocity the CXV would be accelerated to after being launched from the surface and then could return to the surface like the CXV is designed to do or it could be docked to a space station to wait for the next passengers or even to a CXV and then parked in the orbit entered.

To make use of the data about Apollo I already have I do what I did in the CXV-thread already - I simply take the heavier Apollo-capsule and reduce the required amount of propellant by the result of the division of the combined empty weights of the CXV and the replacement of the Block DM by the weight of the Apollo-CSM.

Since the proepllant-capacity of 25,300 kg is larger than the weight of the weight of the SM of 24,523 kg I consider it to be justified to take the SM-weight as the empty weight.

The result of the division is 0.194.. . So I apply 0.20 here. I do not know if the propellant-capacity of the SM had been used completely but since I have no informations about that yet I assume that really 25,300 kg proepllant had been carried and were required. Then I get for the CXV-like-vehicle-Block-DM-like-booster-combination a required amount of propellant of 5,060 kg.

There is a problem regarding the weight of the Block DM and/or its replacement since the articles are speaking about a modification of the Block DM and/or the Soyuz which would add equipment the Apollo SM had too. So the weight would be increased I suppose and something sinilar wuld be valid for the financially CXV-like vehicle. But I have no numbers about that and so go on based on what I already said.

Now the resulting reuired amount of 5,060 kg of propellant is less than a third of the capacity of the Block DM only. This might mean that the Block DM will be used for three ignitions or so but not for only one ignition. A complete Proton can launch 20 tons but this would include a payload. The two concepts of the lunar Soyuz-flight don't include such a payload. There are only the modifications that might increase the weight of the Block-DM but the payload to be boosted already is in orbit - the Soyuz weiging 7,250 kg only if it is the TM.

Since the Soyuz has been used orbital up to now only but never for lunar flights this might be an argument to suppose that it would enter an orbit around Erath prior to the landing on Earth. Then the reentry would begin at the usual orbital velocity but not at the higher velocity of the flight from the Moon back to Earth. But I will have to reared the articles again to check the informations.

All in all it could be justified to suppose that no adjustments are required for the Block DM-repacemnet entering and parked in orbit after return as well as for removing the assumption that the CXV-like vehicle would be a CXV on its last flight.
But alternatively its possible that the 5,060 kg have to be added to the propellant-capacity of the Block DM already known. Then the reduction of the required propellant applied previously and listed in the table of the previous post will have to be removed - partially or in total or so. I will check that - including the difference that the Apollo Sm used hydrazine, ADMH and dinitrogentetroxide but the Block DM uses cerosene.

I will look for further possibilities to be considered which may increase ( or even reduce) the costs and/or the price again.